Coffee

Writer Bio

Storytelling is a talent passed down through the generations in my family. It is a way of life in that the more you live, the better the story; the deeper the experience, the broader the plain to connect with readers. Just like life is about people so writing is about people - about their love, their loss, their triumphs, their failures, and their x ever after. I write to understand myself and make sense of life. I share my work in order to find others who can relate to my characters, or their lives, or the moral of the story.

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Saturday, March 26, 2011

The magic of stories

Listening to: 94.5 KFM

Drinking: Soup...mmm :)

Watching: Four Weddings USA

You get two types of writers: the kind who are idealists, and the kind that are realists.
I fall under the latter category.

Idealists spin you a complicated plot with perfectly gorgeous characters in hair-raising and worrisome situations. BUT they incorporate a little something special that gives the reader the hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There will be chocolate cake and coffee waiting in a rose garden under the warm sun when you get through this hell. The characters always triumph or escape their unhappy predicament. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And they always - always - give you a happy ending. Everybody gets what they want, except for the bad guys. Everyone lives happily ever after. The End.

Realists, on the other hand, give you flawed characters who somehow manage to stumble into sinking sand pits. Sometimes they deserve it, sometimes they don't. Either way they keep you wondering whether the characters are going to survive their doomed predicament, and if they do whether they'll come off stronger for it or be damaged beyond repair because of it. Sometimes you get an ending which isn't happy, but it's better than what could have been. Other times you get to that rose garden after all the hell, but the sun's heat has melted the chocolate cake and the coffee has gone cold. Happy, but not. The End. Or is it?

That's the thing about 'realist' writing. Like life, you're not always guaranteed to have things work in your favour. But that does give you the opportunity to explore the world of the character that much more. Of course idealists can do the same thing - but what more do you really want to know if you know they're living happily after? It's hard not to read such stories as mere 'fan service'. Realists don't have that issue, because realistically, as long as the character doesn't die at the end of the story, there is room to expand on the story.